Last Week
by mulwray
Summary: One evening, a week or so before things start happening. With a little flashback. The usual fluff. My first piece here.


LAST WEEK

The neighborhood lies dark and sleepy and they have drawn the curtains and lit the lamps by the sofa, in the living room, which they keep tidy and inconspicuous.

"Our neighbor next-door" (a quaint mother of pre-schoolers, a woman even younger than they) "has put up Jack-o-Lanterns", says Lana, the glamorous, ambitious one of the two, bringing home Chinese food. "On the sidewalk. I almost drove one over."

Wendy has set up the dining room table as a work space for her autumn crafts construction. There is glue, and orange and brown paper, and scissors and pencils. She is seriously, childishly busy. On her way home – hours before Lana – she'd stopped by some teenagers and bought some of the stuff they keep in fruit-shaped pill boxes, and now she is getting high, with a mysterious, wicked, contained smile she sends Lana from time to time.

"You should do something on ghost stories this year," says Lana, "they're old enough. Give them a good scare, you know? Like a project on the scary stories they tell in their families on Halloween?"

"They'll never let me," says Wendy earnestly. She exhales slowly, and watches Lana with her face set, a distant twinkle in her eye. "The parents, remember," she says, "They kids'd be game of course. They love that kind of stuff."

"Then make them promise not to tell the parents," says Lana.

Wendy scoffs and rolls her eyes. They both giggle. Lana has gone to the kitchen to get plates. "I didn't tell you," says Wendy, "but Lilly" - "which Lilly?" calls Lana from the kitchen - "Lilly Brunvand asked me about you."

"Oh really!" cries Lana.

Wendy laughs, despite herself. "It's not funny. You know what she said? She said, 'Miss Peyser, who was your pretty lady friend who came to school the other day'. And then she said, real bragging-like, 'I _always _see you with that pretty lady, Miss Peyser, she's so pretty, like a movie star.' "

Wendy neatly presses a cut-out pumpkin to a piece of card-board, waiting, meaning to say: "and I felt awkward, I didn't know what to say to that, I'm afraid she knows, but she couldn't know, and, beneath that, horribly, deep down – I want her to know."

Lana comes into the dining room with bowls and the flimsy white boxes from the chinese take-out, "Who is this mysterious Lilly Brunvand, could it be you have a rival, Miss Peyser?"

"Oh cut it, you!" shrieks Wendy, "she's a nosey little nine-year-old."

"I know," says Lana, setting the food on the coffee-table, "I'm sorry but I'll never remember all those names. Now quit your cutting and glue-ing, Miss Peyser, and come sit with me."

Wendy rises, rubs the glue off her hands. She comes to the sofa, and for a moment they stand, by the sofa, facing each other.

"You look swell, dear" says Wendy, "you glamour girl."

Lana takes Wendy by the arm and pulls her close. They kiss, lingeringly. The soft fronts of their upper bodies press against each other, and they are uncontrollably aware of this. They smile, and kiss again. There is a kind of hum in the air that comes now and then, goes away for a while and then comes back.

Eight years ago, when they first met, they'd had a similar kind of moment – at a party in a town far away, a bar, a kind of speakeasy that had a gay sort of dance floor and romantic lights. Wendy went there regularly with a good-looking boy confidante, Toby, who'd had, it seemed to Wendy, a sheer endless string of other boys and men to dance with. Back then, Lana had been just as well-dressed as now, bewitchingly flighty, with an almost annoying sense of confidence and isolation. She was young looking, and shared Wendy's opinions and bookishness. They stood at the back of the dance room, smoking cigarettes, talking heatedly. They were, they felt, at the brink of adult-hood, of actually getting what they wanted. They'd been through their first failures and heart breaks. They thought they knew what life was made of, and who they were. To Wendy, it was unbelievable that a girl like Lana could be one of them. "Don't you get sick of it, though," Lana'd said all of a sudden, "It's the twentieth century, man'll be walking on the moon real soon and they keep telling us this is the greatest country in the world and then this -" she waved her cigarette, so urgently it looked clumsy "- this secret bar for dykes and faggots." Wendy had felt a lump rise within her, and she'd turned her head a little, her silence unnerving Lana. "I mean, you know. Have you ever seen so many ugly women in one place?" Lana laughed nervously. Wendy knitted her eyebrows. "Oh come on, it was a joke" said Lana. "Let's dance."

They'd pulled together. Lana'd prayed for Wendy, smart, sullen, melancholy Wendy, to like her. They pushed at each other, hearts beating close, rocking each other to the music, they'd laughed shyly at some point. This was when they felt that hum. Wendy, feeling more confident, wrapped her arm around Lana's waist. They had been just about to nod close enough to kiss when the dance music changed abruptly to the star spangled banner. Immediately everyone – the boys and the boys, the girls and the girls took a step away from each other. Someone called out, "Vice squad's coming, girls pair up with boys, no more canoodling." Toby slunk up and pulled Wendy away. "Wait," said Wendy, and blinked. "Shushh," said Toby and fidgeted with his shirt buttons. "How is anyone ever going to get a decent lay in this town."

But then Lana's clasping strong hand had come down on Wendy's, and pulled her away. "It's okay. Let's go for a drive."

In Lana's car, Wendy had sat rigidly, relentlessly aware of the perfume Lana was wearing, of the creases in her blouse and the way it folded over her slender chest. Wendy had been with two women before, none of them as beautiful as Lana. Wendy, at that moment, hadn't even been sure whether she had ever even _met_ a woman as beautiful as Lana, and the fact that Lana was this girl taking her out on a drive, them having been to that kind of a place -

"What are you thinking about?" Lana had asked, and leaned forward, indicating that Wendy light her cigarette. Wendy had bent forward to light it. They'd been very close for that quick moment, and felt awkward.

"None of your beeswax," Wendy had said, finally, and they'd both laughed. "I think I'm a little, well, I think I've had too much to drink, to be honest."

"You don't drink much, Miss Peyser?" Lana'd said, and laughed again, picking a speck of tobacco off her tongue, looking pretty and young, like school-girl.

"Well," said Wendy, "I haven't been running out much lately, no. I don't go to these places much."

There'd been red shimmer in Lana's hair, and Wendy had wanted to look up and watch it, and the glint of Lana's lips and her eyes, but she'd tried to stare ahead of herself instead.

Then, Lana had suddenly swerved and parked the car. They just sat there for a while, in the dark. It was very quiet. "Do you think that really was the police?" said Lana, and threw her cigarette out the window. Her voice was excited in a way that made Wendy wonder whether Lana wouldn't have rather stayed, just to see the commotion of the police arriving and, maybe, catching one or two of the boys in the bathrooms. The thought sickened Wendy in a way that clenched her mouth and shallowed her breathing. All her life, she'd known to hide a small, precious piece of herself away, so much that now, she was completely autonomous and yet, also, so very lonely.

"Hey," said Lana. She brushed a strand from Wendy's face. "I'm fine," said Wendy. "I know you are," said Lana, "but I won't be if I don't do this," and they kissed. It was pitch dark outside of the car, and they kissed fiercely. Their hands touched, then moved over each other's bodies, fumbling at buttons, searching for a some brief contact with skin. The hum hung in the air. Later, when they stopped for a moment, Wendy laughed. Lana buried her face on her shoulder, "what are you laughing about?" she asked. "The dark out there," said Wendy, thickly, "it's frightening. it's so dense. Anyone could see us..."

The blinds on the window shift gently. Wendy is terribly aware of them. "I'm never smoking that stuff again, baby," she tells Lana and they both reel, giggling. "When I think it's going to relax me, it doesn't. Just now I was sure somebody's watching us, from that window."

"But," says Lana seriously, "somebody _is_ watching you."

"Oh _you_," says Wendy. They kiss, over their Chinese food.

"It's because I got you thinking of the ghost stories," says Lana, "I'm sorry. And also, I think it's this neighborhood. Doesn't it ever give you the creeps? All those nice New England people in their nice little homes. Oblivious of all the awful things happening in the world around them."

"Like the two dirty dykes living down the street," sneers Wendy.

Lana finishes her food quietly, then, her voice quickening, says,

"Like that manor the church is using for the so-called insane but really, did you know, at least three people have disappeared in there and nobody, nobody even bats an eye."

"Maybe you should do a piece on it," says Wendy.

"Maybe I will," says Lana.

"I mean it," says Wendy. "You should. And don't tell anyone in the editorial department. Just go there and start asking questions. They won't be able to stop you."

Lana pulls her feet onto the sofa and snuggles up to Wendy. Wendy pulls her close. They sit in silence, arms wrapped around each other. A dog barks, somewhere in the distance. The wind rustles. "I love you," says Lana, "I never, ever, want this to end."


End file.
